[Prevscilist] FW: coe-staff: Colloquium: Robert Goldstone - Training Perception and Action to Do the Right Thing

[Elizabeth Skowron]

Upcoming talk…

Elizabeth A. Skowron, Ph.D.
Professor, Counseling Psychology & Human Services
Research Scientist, Center for Translational Neuroscience &
Prevention Science Institute
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
https://education.uoregon.edu/cphs
http://ctn.uoregon.edu/
http://psi.uoregon.edu/index.html
Tel. 541-346-0913

[cid:image001.gif at 01CE1104.B9070730]

From: coe-staff-bounces at lists.uoregon.edu <coe-staff-bounces at lists.uoregon.edu> On Behalf Of Maggie Bosworth
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 9:39 AM
To: coe-staff at lists.uoregon.edu
Subject: coe-staff: Colloquium: Robert Goldstone - Training Perception and Action to Do the Right Thing

Sent on behalf of Dasa Zeithamova, Assistant Professor, Psychology


We are pleased to announce a colloquium series talk by Dr. Robert Goldstone, held in Straub 245 on October 5, 2018 at 2:30pm. The title of the talk is

Training Perception and Action to Do the Right Thing

Dr. Goldstone is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University. His talk will focus on Interactions between perception and concepts, but his work also includes topics on collective behavior, such as group consequences of individual decisions, as well as educational applications of cognitive research, topics relevant to many in the department and beyond. Dr. Goldstone uses both experimental and computational modeling approaches.

Abstract of the talk is copied below. I will send a separate email next week setting up his meeting and dinner schedule.

—————————-
Training Perception and Action to Do the Right Thing
By one account, formal thought in mathematics and science requires developing deep construals that run counter to perception.  This approach draws an opposition between superficial perception and principled understanding.  In this talk, I advocate the converse strategy of grounding scientific and mathematical reasoning in perception and action.   Relatively sophisticated reasoning is typically achieved not by ignoring perception, but rather by adapting perception and action routines so as to conform with and support formally sanctioned responses.   Perception and action are more sophisticated than usually thought, particularly because they can be adapted to do the (cognitive) Right Thing.
The first case study for this thesis concerns arithmetic and algebraic reasoning, where we find that mathematical proficiency involves executing spatially explicit transformations to notational elements.  People learn to attend mathematical operations in the order in which they should be executed, and the extent to which students employ their perceptual attention in this manner is positively correlated with their mathematical experience.  People also produce mathematical notations that they are good at reading.  Based on observations like these, we have begun to design, implement, and assess virtual, interactive sandboxes for students to explore algebra.
The second case study involves students learning about science by exploring simulations.   We have developed a computational model of the process by which human learners discover patterns in natural phenomena.  Our approach to modeling how people learn about a system by interacting with it follows three core design principles: 1) perceptual grounding, 2) experimental intervention, and 3) cognitively plausible heuristics for determining relations between simulation elements.  In contrast to the majority of existing models of scientific discovery in which inputs are presented as symbolic, often numerically quantified, structured representations, our model takes as input perceptually grounded, spatio-temporal movies of simulated natural phenomena.

--------------------------------
Dasa Zeithamova
Assistant Professor, Psychology
University of Oregon
(541) 346 6731




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